Education

Yesteryear giants routed in exams

Details

Published on Sunday, 09 March 2008 05:52

In the 1970s and 1980s, the mention of some school names immediately brought to mind academic success. Agoro Sare High School in South Nyanza, Shimo la Tewa School at the Coast, Kerugoya Boys’ High School in Kirinyaga, Cardinal Otunga in Kisii, Kagumo High in Nyeri, among others, were schools that made parents confidently believe their children would excel at the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education examination.

Other schools that generated this kind of confidence included Tengecha Boys’ High School, St Peter’s Kapropita High School, Sawagongo, St Mary’s Yala and Rapogi High.

Girls’ schools that shone included Ng’iya and Lwak high schools in Siaya district, Tumu Tumu and Bishop Gatimu Ngandu high schools in Nyeri, Kereri in Kisii, Nangina Girls, Mukumu Girls, Star of the Sea and Nyabisawa.

Today, however, most of these schools are hardly heard of. In fact, some parents turn down their children’s admission to some of these fallen giants.

In the 1980s, these schools were scrambled for and, if a student was not admitted to any of them, he or she would look for and read notes from students who had found a place there.

Students interacted with their counterparts from these giants with one aim; to borrow ideas on how to perform better in KCSE.

Mock examination questions were exchanged during the holidays, something that students hardly do today.

Various reasons have been cited for the decline, ranging from indiscipline to dilapidated infrastructure, while some head teachers feel that the problem lies in the ranking system.

“How I wish we didn’t rank schools. We have stopped training our children to competitively handle world challenges and we are tutoring them for examinations,” one teacher said.

Most teachers who talked to the Sunday Nation expressed concern about the worrying trend of cheating in examinations.

Although evidence indicates that some schools have been penalised for cheating, most teachers said that the Kenya National Examinations Council needs to do more.

“We urge the Kenya National Examinations Council to guard against examination leakage which is one of the causes of the ranking discrepancies,” another teacher said.

However, the principal of State House Girls’ High School, Mrs Sera Ndege, said her school had maintained its mean grade of B- for the past four years and the ranking of the school did not bother her as long as the individual students performed well.

Ms Ndege said her main concern now is to ensure that the mean grade improves, as every student performed well and got a mean grade that would allow them pursue university education.

Some teachers who spoke on condition of anonymity said the ranking system had caused some head teachers to allow their students to cheat to raise the ranking of their schools.

They claimed that some schools were directing their energies towards drilling students purely for the purpose of getting the school a high national position.

Although some schools are not well equipped for science subjects, this does not seem to offer sufficient reason for the giants’ fall.

Some schools performed admirably, even though they did not appear in the list of top performers, raising questions as to what the ranking criteria are.

The introduction of the quota system has also been blamed for the declining performance of provincial schools.

Under this system, students are drawn from the province these schools are located. Before this policy was introduced, students were drawn from all provinces of the country.

Teachers argue that before the introduction of the quota system, students used to compete for excellence. The standards they sought were much higher than they are today. The quota system, however, killed this spirit and made students lax.

The teachers also blamed political interference for the fall of the giants.

They said the process of selecting school heads was hijacked by powerful politicians and sponsors.

The result of this was that head teachers were selected depending on who backed them, rather than on who was best suited for the job.  This demoralised teachers and the schools lost momentum in their quest for excellence.